The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - How Democracy Slips Into Dictatorship

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

In "How to Lose a Country", Turkish political thinker Ece Temelkuran examines the rise of populism and nationalism around the world. And given the international climate of late, we thought we'd invite her on The Agenda with Steve Paikin, to discuss her book and the themes that are so resonant today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In How to Lose a Country, Ece Temelkurhan examines the rise of populism and nationalism around the globe. And given the international climate of late, we thought we'd invite her on to discuss her book and the themes that are so very resonant today. She joins us on the line from London, UK. And Ece, it's great to have you here on TVO. How are you tonight? It's great being with you. Thank you. I'm in London and the weather is horrible. When is it not? Anyway, let's see if the state of democracy is as horrible as the weather in London today. And I'm going to start by reading a quote from your book. So I'll ask our director Sheldon Osmond to bring this quote up and I'll read along. Democracy, you write, in its current state has been gradually reduced to a

performance of itself for a long time. One of the greatest promises humanity made to itself, equality, liberty, fraternity, has been rendered into a tasteless joke. Okay, Ece, what's the tasteless joke you're talking about here? Well, democracy, I think, in its current form is a tasteless joke. I mean, it looks like for many people, it looks like a play, a theater act, so to speak, played in rooms such as parliaments and privileged people talking to each other. Many people, I think they do not feel the connection between themselves and the political decisions anymore.

And it has a history. I mean, like since 50 years, since six years, I think gradually, democracy lost its promise. It has become a system in which people cannot change their precarity. They can make decisions. They can go to ballot boxes. They can vote, but they cannot really change their lives. They cannot change the economic decisions. They cannot influence the economic decisions. I think that is the main reason or beginning of losing faith in democracy and losing loss of faith in democracy by large masses, I think, turned this into a joke. And there has been anger brewing among the masses. And this anger has been organized by far right.

So this is where we are. It is a joke and there are people who are very very angry being the butt of the joke. Well let me pick up on one phrase you used in that answer and that is a bunch of privileged people getting together in legislatures and making decisions over the others. I mean I sit here today in the capital city of the province of Ontario in Canada. We have a legislative assembly about six subway stops south of where I'm sitting right now. The legislative assembly is made up of a lot of teachers

and small business people and farmers and nurses. And it really is a house of commons. There's a lot of very ordinary people there. How does that, from the prism of somebody who's unhappy with the world look like a bunch of privileged people when in fact they're not all that privileged? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like this is one of the things that has been used by far, right? You know, every educated people, person in their point of view is privileged.

Everybody who's a Democrat is a privileged person. But then what I meant to say is a little bit different. And there's a bit of truth in the anger. The anger is organized and mobilized by the far right, but there is some meaning in that anger. That anger is not completely pointless, actually. The anger comes from the loss of social justice within the democracy. All these years, all these decades, I think, we have been made to believe that social justice is not the integral part of democracy. And when that social justice is no more, I think that gave the ammunition to Far-Right to say that it is a show for privileged people and we are not counted as first-class citizens. The anger is right, but the pop-up is mobilized is wrong, I think.

Let me get you to clarify a couple of expressions that we hear used all the time and you use them in your book. Populism versus authoritarianism. What is the distinction between the two? Well, I mean, like libraries are full of books talking about this distinction. And I don't want to offend all those academics who have been spending their lives to clarify these terms. But then I think populism is a tool to, very roughly, is a tool to get to power. And then authoritarianism is about how you use it.

How you use the power. However, I think we are beyond these words. Kamala Harris very recently and several other people in Washington started using the word fascism, which I have been using since 2016. I was telling with How to Lose a Country that fascism is a global phenomenon and it's rising and it has common patterns in every country and that Western democracies are not immune to this. So I think it is time we use the word fascism.

We should be brave enough to use it. I'm going to come back to that word in a second, but I think first we need to get some background in place for those people who are watching or listening who don't know about your background. You're originally from Turkey. You left the country in 2016, and we have seen what has happened to Turkey over the past decade. And certainly if you love democracy, it ain't good. Why don't you tell us about the circumstances that led to your departure?

Well, my personal story is not that important to be honest, because there have been millions, I don't know, millions of people have been suffering since two decades, at least, under Aguinaldo's regime. Well, it all started, like, it didn't start overnight, it creeped this authoritarian inclination, fascist inclination, creeped into the system. And then many people were illusioned with the promises, with the fabulous, spectacular promises of the government. And then finally one day it was too late to resist against the regime. My story is quite cliche actually nowadays because I was a Janlis, I was writing columns,

I was a political writer. So I wrote something against Erdogan the next day. I was fired and then death threats, rape threats, which are very popular in Turkey and in several other countries, I guess. And then one day I thought, this is too much fear. Fear became too overwhelming and it started paralyzing me. So I decided to leave the country to realize myself, I think, both intellectually and emotionally as a person.

So, yeah, this is what fascism does to people, I think. It just turns your life upside down suddenly. A pretty obvious follow-up question here. Your book is available in lots of countries. I wonder if it's available in Turkish, in Turkey. No, not yet. But one day it will be, I'm sure. This well, 2024 has been a heck of a year for democracy.

There have been elections in countries where almost half the world's population lives. The elections either have taken place or are about to take place. Obviously the US next week. Here's a bit of a snapshot here. Of course Erdogan won in your native Turkey. Modi's BJP won a third term in India. The Freedom Party won in Austria. That's the first time that a far-right party has won the most seats in a legislative election in Austria since World War II. And in Germany, the far right AFD, alternative for Deutschland, they came a close second. What do you think the results of these elections so far, tell us about the

state of democracy in the world today? Well, you know what? I mean, since the book was published, the first time published in 2019, I'm going around the world telling people like a Cassandra that it is coming towards them as well. And it's not going to be limited to these, you know, crazy countries, so to speak, such as India or Turkey, and it will come to Europe. And now I'm very, very sad that my so to speak prophecy came true. but it wasn't the prophecy was like, you know Glaringly clear that it was have going to happen in Western democracies as well

I think they to you know, they felt too comfortable thinking that their democracies are more mature Than of those countries in the periphery. But it wasn't because this, what is happening, as I call it fascism, the rising fascism, comes from the fact that democracy is living its crisis. And this crisis is very much connected to the lack of social justice. And also, since the Cold War, I think there's this ideological war on left. And now, when center is so weak in European countries and in the United States, in Canada, perhaps as well, people are trying to strengthen the center without the left. I think this is what's happening all around the world. And the crisis of democracy is becoming more and more global. And then the Western countries are realizing that their

institutions have never been so strong. They are not that strong as much as they wanted to believe. not that strong as much as they wanted to believe. We're going to have people consider the seven features that you say are common patterns in the way that we lose democracy in this world, and you've outlined them in How to Lose a Country. And here are the seven. The strong person creates a movement, terrorizes language, removes shame, dismantles judicial and political mechanisms, designs their own kind of citizen, lets them laugh at the horror of it all, and then builds their own country.

And the obvious question coming out of this is how much of those seven do you see in Donald Trump's agenda in the United States? Well, Donald Trump is a very particular example because he didn't come from politics. He was just a funny guy. It is so interesting to see this because in Turkey, our leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of Turkey, knows politics very well. He's an incredible politician. He comes from politics.

He's experienced and he's intelligent and he has an organization behind him and so on. And Turkey has been resisting this, against this for 20 years. Well, four years of Trump was enough to shake United States. That tells a lot. And Trump, I think, one of the mistakes that the Democrats did in the United States was to laugh at him for too long. I just remember how hopeful they were when Trump was elected for the first time. Many people were thinking that he wouldn't last a year. They didn't take him seriously. And I think they laughed at the horror for too long. I think that might have been the

fifth or sixth step in how to lose a country. Number six, yes. That was the biggest mistake. And now I think they're paying for it. What is so interesting about American democracy at this point, like the election campaign, especially, is that Kamala Harris, I'm watching Kamala Harris' campaign. And it is a lot of entertainment. And I'm thinking, well, Trump is more entertaining, you know, automatically more entertaining. So why are you getting in that race with him? So this is one of the reasons I call democracy is becoming a

joke or a form of entertainment. It looks like a, you know, a rock star concert tour, this entire election campaign, and I don't think people are realizing how powerful it is. Our handful is entertainment business is for democracy. Well, given your knowledge of your native Turkey, we should ask you about what signs you have seen take place over the past decade in Turkey that the United States might be on the brink of right now and how the United States potentially can avoid what you see

as the pitfalls that have happened in Turkey? Many people are more attracted to the news, like these outrageous statements from Trump or outrageous events like the New Orleans on the ground. But I think what is more important is happening behind the scenes, more in the institutional level. And I think United States is, or should be very careful about the loss of judicial mechanisms. It has already started. That's why they're having a big problem about abortion. You know, Supreme Court is very much affected by Trump's first term. But I think they should be careful about who is appointed to which institution.

Not only the Supreme Court, Supreme Court, those big institutions, but also the small institutions. Those things are important. Those little details do not make it to the news or first page of New York Times, but those are the key moments when a far right or a fascist leader is climbing into power. And also they have taken seriously really when he says, he says things, he means them and he plans to do. It's not a joke. Well, that's what the New York Times op-ed section said last weekend, right? They said they gave a litany of Trump's, what do I want to call them, characteristics.

And they basically said, believe him when he says he's going to do this because he has a track record of doing it. I want to ask you in our last few minutes here about the word fascism, because, Eche, I don't have to tell you, it's a very heavy word. It's a big word. When people hear the word fascist, they think Hitler, they think Mussolini. I mean, they crank it right up to 11, if you know what I mean. And I wonder whether the Democratic Party, for too long, has been using the word fascist to describe their political adversaries to the point where people are no longer afraid of the word.

And that's part of the reason that they're happy to entertain the idea of Donald Trump as president. I know. I mean, like for many people, it sounded like for many years, it sounded like, you know, an adolescent teenager who doesn't want to tidy his room and shower in his parents' fashists, your fashists. But it's not like that. Avoiding the word fascism can be the biggest mistake actually.

Because yes, when you hear the word fascism, you think of Hitler, Mussolini, all these black and white documentaries. And of course, I also miss the clarity of those black and white contrasts, the clarity of those documentaries, but we're living in a very colorful time. And fascism does not come as it did in the past in our current situation. It just comes as a form of entertainment, just like Trump does at the moment. So not calling it fascism is both a historical mistake because, you know,

fascism was not actually buried in the battlefields of second world war. It lingered in this system that we are living in. And it's also a political mistake. You have to alarm people. This is getting more serious. Many people, due to their privileges, might think that all these political developments, all these political events wouldn't affect their individual lives. But one thing I learned or we learned in Turkey, if you're not interested in politics, if you're not really doing something against fascism, it becomes really interesting.

And then your individual life becomes a very difficult place to live. Well I know you wrote this book five years ago, but the timing for anybody who wanted to read it today could not be better. It is the key issue in democracies today. How to Lose a Country, the seven steps from democracy to fascism, ecce to Melchoran. We're really grateful you could spare some time for us on TVO tonight. Many thanks. Thank you.

Thank you very much.